Dáil debates

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

3:00 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

There were two aspects to the Minister's response but not much time to examine them. I merely point out that it is a political decision to effectively hand over the education budget of this country as interest repayments to bondholders. We do not have to make this decision. Does the Minister find it interesting that Greek students, among others, are on the streets now and because of their resistance to the austerity programme Europe is reconsidering restructuring the Greek debt and allowing the country more time to pay it? Would we not be better off taking that sort of action rather than accepting these unacceptable restraints which are strangling our education system and forcing us towards unpalatable measures such as the introduction of fees?

Given the restraints the Minister is under and given that his fellow Minister stated only minutes ago it was not possible to exempt any sector from pain, there is also a choice to be made in that regard, in terms of funding our services, education included. Instead of service charges which are inevitably regressive and hit the lowest earners, we might consider putting taxes on the wealthy. If we taxed the wealthy, which group this Government and the last one exempted from the pain, we could get the money elsewhere to fund our services. However, that option never seems to be considered. It is always about how we will squeeze more and more money out of people who cannot afford it. If any further financial obstacles are put in front of people entering third level education this will be devastating for our prospects for economic recovery.

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